Chapter Name: Freddie.

Notes: Thanks to reviewers Pigwiz, Jose C, Nindira and Snapplelinz.

The army trucks that came to pickup bodies had stopped coming. Freddie took it on himself. We drove to Lake View Cemetery the day after she died.. no, the day after she was murdered. I tried to get him to talk. It was no use. I followed him out the door as he carried Carly's body wrapped up in a white sheet.

We drove over the 520 Bridge as dawn broke. The morning was perfect. A cloudless sky, no wind. Lake Washington was still and calm. Everyone hated this stupid bridge before, the place was constantly packed. Now it was devoid of any activity. I could see the mountains in the background. All it did was remind me how beautiful this city was before it all went to hell. Now the only thing left that has any beauty is nature itself. Maybe it'll take over and reclaim everything. I saw a tv show about that once.

Freddie broke into their equipment shed looking for something to dig her grave. Every machine he tried spluttered then died. Parts were either stolen or broken down, or the fuel was siphoned off.

The only thing left was a shovel.

One.

Freddie placed it in the back of the van along with a bag of quick dry cement. He picked the location. Over to the east with the view of the lake.

He stopped the car. Freddie pulled out the shovel and chucked it onto the ground.

Then Carly. He picked her up so softly. He placed her under the shade of a nearby tree. A gnarled old oak tree that stood out from the rest of the trees by virtue of the size and location standing alone.

A dozen paces away Freddie took the shovel and rammed it into the dirt. Luckily the recent rain had made it soft. I'd hate to think what would have happened had it been sunny and dried out.

The first thing he did was cut the top layer of grass out.

Then he started on the soil itself.

It took hours.

I watched for an hour then drove off looking for something, anything to help him. I should have looted a hardware store or something before we left. I should have seen this coming. I should have been there for Carly.

Now she's dead. Because I didn't fucking stay with my friends. I left them and Carly died because of me. I screamed, and let out my rage on a nearby computer monitor. I ripped out of the desk it was attached to and tossed it straight into the window.

The glass shattered. The sound, the destruction.. I liked it. I stalked the office, smashing anything and everything I could find. I destroyed everything I could get my hands on. What was the fucking point in keeping everything just right? No-one would care. The odds anyone who worked here still being alive were next to nothing.

It was just like old times. Except this time no-one gave a fuck about what I was doing.

Spencer wouldn't chastise me.

Freddie wouldn't roll his eyes and make a snide remark.

The cops wouldn't show up.

Lewbert wouldn't screech at me.

My mom.. she never cared anyway.

Carly wouldn't stop me.

That's when I stopped. I thought about all the times Carly had intervened. Had helped me. Had saved me. My rage quickly turned to grief. I stopped and slid down the wall. I couldn't help remember, and I cried for what must have been three or four hours. The sun had risen nearly straight up.. so it was probably just before mid-day.

The only thing that stopped me from just lying there until Freddie came to find me was a rumble in my stomach. I knew Freddie would be feeling the same, and the van had all the rations and bottles of water.

I drove the van back to Freddie. He'd made good progress on the hole. If I had to guess he was half-done. I interrupted him by handing him a bottle of water and one of the ration bars. He grunted and ripped the bar open and finished it in two bites. One long gulp of water later and he was back to digging.

Deeper and deeper down he went. The pile of dirt grew taller. Every 15 or so seconds another clump of dirt would fly up and land in the pile.

Then the scraping noise stopped.

It was done.

I picked up and took Carly over to Freddie. I slowly bent down to pass her to Freddie, who laid her down to rest. He opened the sheet and kissed her forehead before closing the sheet over her. Freddie threw the shovel back up over the lip of the dirt then I helped him up. He took the shovel, and aimed it into the pile of dirt.

He paused. I guess he wanted me to say a few words.

'Goodbye cupcake.. I'm gonna miss you. I'm sorry.' That's what I said. What would you have said? Have you ever thought about dying? About death? About the fact everyone dies. We go through life ignoring it. Pushing it in the back of our mind. But it always comes and it's never pretty. Look at the person sitting next to you, or over on the other side of the room. Think about what you'd say about them if you they died tomorrow.

I couldn't take it, I couldn't think of anything more before the tears rolled down my eyes. Freddie sighed and started filling in Carly's grave.

Before we left we made one last stop. Freddie looked up the map and found the engraver's building. We stepped inside, the sunset filled the room. All the dust we disturbed showed up in the orange shafts of light. He picked up a pre-cut but blank sandstone headstone and a set of chisels.

I drove back to the plaza. Freddie sat in the passenger seat staring out the window. I didn't try to talk to him this time. Once we arrived he took the headstone and the chisels and vanished.

It wasn't until much later that evening until I realized I hadn't seen Freddie since we came back. I'd heard him chipping away, but that had stopped. Normally he'd have come down for dinner by now.

I called his name. I searched every room in the loft from bottom to top. The only sign of him was the headstone with "Carly Shay" carved into that was sitting on the wall in the room he slept in. I heard a door swinging back and forth. I recognized the noise, the squeaky door to the emergency stairwell. It lead up to the roof. If that was blowing open and shut it meant someone was on the roof.

It meant Freddie was up there. I had a bad feeling about it, so I raced up the few flights of stairs up to the roof.

He was standing on the edge of the building. I called his name out slowly. I didn't want to spook him. I walked around to where he carefully, not wanting him to panic. He was staring into the distance. Freddie hadn't even acknowledged my presence.

I closed towards him when he turned to me, frowned and opened his arms wide. I ran the last steps as he tilted his balance forward to fall off the edge. I grabbed the back of his shirt as hard as I could to stop him, angled over the lip of the building. I wrapped my other arm around my waist and threw him onto the ground on the roof.

I asked him what he hell he was thinking and he just ignored me. He stood up and walked right on by.

I didn't know what to do. I thought for a second about shoving him up against the wall and asking what his problem was... but I knew what the problem was.

Everyone handles death differently. Some people shut down. Other people run from it. Some try to ignore it until they can't deny any longer.

I followed him back to the room he'd been sleeping in. It was a spare guest bedroom he'd used sometimes when he stayed over. I wanted to talk about it. He sat down on the side of the bed with his head in his hands. Freddie didn't look like he wanted to talk. He was looking at the headstone he carved for her. I knew I couldn't leave him alone that night. I did the only thing I could think of. I didn't want him to wait until I was asleep then go jump off the building without anyone to stop him.

I walked over to the bed, cupped his cheek with my hand then kissed him. I don't know why.. but it made sense. I kissed him hard, pushing him back onto the bed. If I could distract him, distract myself. Get rid of the dull pain and the aching hole in our hearts after losing Carly. Having to live in this wasteland just never stopped reminding us of how badly our lives had been ruined. I wanted to forget about it for one fleeting moment.

He had tears falling from his eyes as he finally kissed me back.

Then we made love.

Had sex.

Fucked.

Have you learned about that yet kids? Give it time if you haven't. Although if you are watching this you should be old enough to understand.

Is that enough of a 'historical record'? Do you want to know how many times we did it? What positions? What color the condoms were? How long he lasted? How good it was? Is that what you want to know?

All that matters is we got through the night. Together. I didn't know how much longer we'd live, and I sure as hell didn't want to die a virgin.

I didn't know if Freddie was until that night. There were more than enough girls chasing after him that I wouldn't be sure. He never said anything if we brought it up. That was probably my fault after what happened when I found out about a secret of his a few years earlier.

In the back of my mind I suspected that more than just kissing happened with him and Carly after he saved her life. I figured if it did they wouldn't tell me. Freddie wouldn't 'kiss and tell'. He'd keep her outward virtue intact. Freddie wouldn't tell a soul if Carly asked him.

The next morning he was gone by the time I woke up. Early. The sunlight and birds woke me up. I went into a momentary panic. I sprinted on to the roof calling out his name. He wasn't there. I went back downstairs and searched for him again. In the end I found a note on the kitchen table. He'd left to go back to the cemetery. That he'd be back later on.

I decided to give him the time alone. That was until the it passed midday and he still wasn't back. I figured maybe his stupid van broke down, so I took the pickup back over.

I was right. It'd broken down. But he hadn't spent the time idle. Freddie had put up her headstone. He'd pulled out another and carved his own name into it. Most startling of all, he'd dug an entire new grave next to Carly. He left another headstone lying beside it.

I asked what he was thinking? He wasn't going to jump off the building again. Right?

No. He told me what they say about seeking revenge.

Always dig two graves.

On the drive back a macabre joke spilled out. Freddie commented that since he'd already dug one grave for Carly, that the guys who killed her wouldn't get any at all. Just him.

He laughed. A dark chuckle, the kind I'd never heard Freddie use in his entire life. He'd never been that cynical, or disturbed ever. It shook me. Our lives were ruined beyond all recognition, but I hadn't expected that from him. I stopped the car and fucked him right on the bridge. Just to see if I could snap that dark streak out of him before it got worse.

It worked for a few hours.

That became our thing. Anytime he slipped further into a depression or self-hate or anger, I'd bring him back from the proverbial edge. He even did the same for me a few times. Sometimes it was hard and quick and nasty just to snap ourselves out of our morose thoughts.

Then other times.. usually the days we didn't want to risk going out because of fire, or pelting rain, or when we could hear street fighting between rival gangs, it was slow. Deliberate. He'd find me holding back my tears on the roof. Or lying in bed staring blankly at the roof. He'd hold me, and kiss me, then try to tell me it would get better even though we both knew it was a filthy lie.

Then came the momentary escape.

We'd begun sleeping together as well as sleeping together. Made sense to me. When the world grows cold you find warmth wherever you can. How philosophical of me. It wasn't love in the pure, romantic sense of the word. But it was all the love we could hope for.

He spent the next month practicing with the guns I took from my uncle. I taught him the basic operation, and he took it from there. It wasn't hard for him. I guess all those video games came in handy eventually. He made us go back and get a few different types. He'd vanish for hours at a time with his guns and a pair of binoculars. Then he'd come back and practice on the roof.

I kept busy as well. Mostly checking the building to make sure it wasn't falling apart.. I went back to the school to get the food and water Freddie and Carly went to get. I took it all. I didn't walk through the halls that Carly and Freddie had. The elevator stayed working using power from the generator in the basement.

Normally it was for the whole building if there was a long-term power failure. Luckily for us, it'd been refilled less than a week before the attack as part of a routine maintenance. By the time the power failed hardly anyone was left to use the generator so we had it all to ourselves. Freddie worked out that with just us in the building and only minimal usage of the lights and elevator that we wouldn't have to worry about finding more fuel. But I scavenged some drums worth anyway and brought them with me.

I followed him once. He'd tracked down the gang who killed Carly. There were more of them now. Freddie told me 23. This massive three story house in what used to be the fancy part of the city.

The day after he decided he could use the M21 properly they had 22. Frontier justice. What if they did the same to other people? They needed to be punished. That was the end of the discussion on his part.

Two days later it was 21.

When Freddie shot three more of them by the time the week was over they'd started leaving on their own. Freddie watched as their numbers dwindled. Soon enough Freddie was certain they were down to the five that had killed Carly.

Freddie had let me in on his plot. I tried to talk him out of it but my heart wasn't in it. What was left for us but revenge? He was right. Those monsters didn't deserve to live. Not after what they did to Freddie and Carly. It was pretty simple. Their security was lax. They'd trashed the place before moving in so most of the locks on the doors were broken.

The only protection they had was installing some temporary steel grid fencing around the house with some basic locks on them. It had rough canvas to prevent people looking in from ground level. It didn't help anyone looking into the building with a 12x scope from an attic a block away. The house must have used artificial turf since it hadn't grown at all. Cars littered the front garden, all being modified, worked on as transport for the gang. The rifle itself had jammed and broken irreparably when Freddie had been practicing which meant we couldn't just hunt down and shoot them like the rabid dogs they were.

No. We'd have to go into their lair.

I'd tell you the plan but it didn't matter. The day before we were supposed to go, he went on his own. He left a letter for me saying he didn't want anyone else to get hurt. He couldn't have been gone for long because I'd heard him stir and leave the room. I figured he was up to make breakfast or something. I should have known he'd do something like this. He always wanted to protect Carly, and never wanted me help to do it if it had anything to do with other guys. Of course he'd want revenge on his own. Of course he'd leave me alone again, just like every other man I've known in my life.

I didn't want to be alone again. After grabbing my combat vest and guns from I drove a million miles an hour to get over there. Freddie had taken another car and it was there only a block away from the house. The pickup skidded to a halt beside the car. If I got any closer they might hear me. I saw Freddie push open a side gate then move inside. I couldn't call out to him. If anyone heard me they'd be alerted for sure.

I grabbed the MP7 from the passenger seat and along with my pistol I checked they were both loaded. I quietly closed the door behind me.

Then I heard a short scuffle and a strangled cry.

As I was running up to the entrance shooting started. I instantly dropped to the gutter, head down. A burst of pistol fire sizzled through the canvas sheeting and rippled over my head.

Freddie's pistol returned fire half a dozen times. I edged out of the gutter and started crawling towards the entrance.

I froze when I heard the boom of a shotgun from inside the house. It was followed instantly by a rifle shot. Shattered glass mixed with the ping of ricochets from a car Freddie was taking cover behind from the two shooters.

Then the M4 carbine Freddie had made me go back to my uncle's for started firing. Freddie was firing short bursts. He caused more glass to break and the sound of cracking wood filled the air. It all stopped for a moment until I heard someone yell out a half a curse before a massive explosion rocked the house.

Once the explosion faded I stood up again. I called out to Freddie but got no reply.

I took out my own pistol, and cautiously made my way inside. The first guy was slumped face first against a tree, jeans hanging low. Freddie must have surprised the big dumb idiot while he was taking a leak. The blood was still leaking out from his throat, soaking into the grass.

The short guy had fallen off the steps. The moron was still holding his pistol sideways like a try hard gangsta. If he had got the first shot at Freddie, then holding his gun the wrong way got him killed because he missed and Freddie hit him four times.

I went through the door with the pistol aimed up, I cleared the front room, slowly and deliberately. The other two members of the gang were lying there. The first had three large exit wounds in his back, and the other had a face full of shrapnel from the grenade Freddie had thrown. It was not pretty.

I heard Freddie cry out, then the sound of a fight upstairs. Then three gunshots right one after another. Then all the noise stopped.

I ran up the stairs.. I called out to Freddie. I didn't care if anyone else heard me by now. Freddie called out to me. Called my name.

The room they were in was a mess. Freddie was slumped against one wall, the leader the other. Both walls were splattered with blood.

Freddie had both guns. But he was hit. In the stomach. I could see the blood through his clothes. The other guy.. the one who stabbed Carly was hit in the shoulder and knee. Freddie was in pain, I could tell. The gritted teeth, he was struggling to keep his gun up at the leader.

Freddie told me he was dying. He could feel it. I tried to reassure him, even if I had no idea. I tried putting pressure on his wound, all it did was cause more blood to soak through his shirt. He told me to let him go so he could talk.

The leader sat silently coping with his own pain. Freddie asked if the leader recognized him. He didn't answer until Freddie lifted the gun up at him again. Yes he grunted. Freddie asked him his name.

Andrew.

I watched Freddie ask question after question. They both grimaced each time they talked. The leader tried to beg for his life. Freddie told him all about her. How much effort she spent on school on learning. How she brightened any room she entered. How she's been his friend since the day he first met her. How much fun they had together. How much he cared and loved her.

He realized Freddie wasn't going to let him go. Not after what he did. Then his eyes narrowed and he crawled back upright against the wall as best he could. Freddie held the gun up, but his aim wavered. Andrew laughed. Maliciously he told us how he thought Carly enjoyed it when he raped her, how she was the best fuck he'd ever had.

Freddie shot him between the eyes before he could get a third lie out of his mouth. When the echo of the shot faded away, I picked Freddie up in my arms as best I could and carried him out. I took him back to the truck and drove home.

He was already unconscious. By the time I got him back into his bed his pulse was even weaker. He would fade in and out. I would be lucky to talk for a minute before his head would drop and I would pray that his pulse wouldn't have stopped. I'd wrapped his wound with bandages from the medical kit we had and have him the painkillers from our med kit. He told me they helped but it still hurt so much. But that it was worth it. He couldn't let those murderers go free.

I didn't know how to fix him. I hadn't so much as seen a med student or nurse or dentist or vet, let alone a doctor while I was scavenging. Freddie told me to stop worrying. He even apologized for getting shot. Told me that I was strong enough to go on without him. He begged me not to do what he nearly did on the roof. Can you believe that? He was about to dieand he still cared more about my feelings than his own. That's how he lived, and that's how he died. Keeping focused on the people close to him. Worrying about them first and foremost.

His breathing became shallower. Freddie had trouble keeping his eyes open. Tears started rolling down my face. I knew it wouldn't be long. Freddie pulled his hand up to my cheek to wipe them away. He even tried our little 'I hate you' routine. Fuck that. I said as much to him. He kept gently rubbing my cheek and told me he loved me and asked that I never forget him. Never in a million years would I ever forget him or Carly. I kissed him. I told him I loved him back. He smirked. That smirk. That charming, impossibly annoying and frustrating but still somehow reassuring smirk of his.

He said he knew. He just didn't expect to have to die before I'd say it. I fucking cried, like a goddamn baby. When he started gasping for air we both knew it was time. The next few minutes of his assurances about how I'd be okay.. it all felt hollow.

I felt empty. Like everything had been taken away from me. That life itself, a normal life was stolen from us by whatever it was that started this war.

The last thing he said was about Carly. Then his eyes closed for the last time. His chest fell and didn't rise again. He was dead.

I buried him two hours later alongside Carly.

I was half an hour into digging my own grave next to him when I realized the futility of it. Who would know where to bury me if I died? No-one would know. No-one would care.

Freddie was still a fucking teenager and he was dead.

Carly was dead.

Spencer was dead.

I didn't leave the apartment for a week. I barely ate. I just stayed in bed. I took some of the pills Freddie had in the medicine cabinet to dull the pain. I finished the last of the liquor Spencer had kept in his room that Freddie and me drank whenever we felt like it. They didn't numb anything.

I stood up on the edge of the building. I wanted to jump. I nearly did. But that damn smirk of his kept flashing up into my mind. His words. Don't do it. I looked over the dying city. My home.

And I was completely alone.

Is that enough 'history' for you? Telling you how my best friends died all those years ago?

I'm so over this shit. If you want me I'll be in the chow line before the mission briefing. Don't even think about asking me what Freddie told me. There's no way in hell I'm telling you. You don't deserve that. You weren't there.

Got it?

Good.

AN: Sorry Snappz. What time do you want to come over? I'll cook you dinner to make up for it.